Hospital Workers Discover Fake Bomb

December 19, 1985|By Jean Claude de la France of The Sentinel Staff

KISSIMMEE — Construction workers at Humana Hospital Kissimmee found early Wednesday a mock bomb in the ceiling of a housekeeping storage building, forcing officials to send incoming emergency patients to another hospital for more than an hour. Humana Associate Executive Director Bob Snyder said no patients were evacuated, but employees from housekeeping, X-ray, food service and technical laboratory departments were kept out of the area until experts from the Orlando Fire Department's bomb squad unit said the bomb was fake.

He was not sure how many people were evacuated.

Kissimmee police said the mock bomb had been used during a mock-disaster preparedness drill at the hospital two years ago.

Lt. John Sutphin said someone apparently found the bomb in a closet and ''stuck it on the ceiling as a practical joke.''

Sutphin said police are looking for the culprit but do not plan to file charges.

''At this point we are treating it as a suspicious incident,'' he said. 'It appears to have been a practical joke and there was no criminal intent there.''

Sutphin said at first police thought the mock-bomb had been left on the roof from the original drill, but changed their mind when they found out the area had been under construction late Tuesday.